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4 Year Anniversary of Wedding Congratulations to you and Wendy. From reading your blogs, I can tell you two are a happy and lovely couple. Like you guys, I met my husband at the same university we both went to. We are also one year apart in age. One thing you two will always will share in common is many college friends that you both know well. Our best friends are our college chums decades later. Speaking of marriage, one thing bothers me a great deal is seeing so many young Chinese women (especially the Shanghainese) marrying foreign men old enough to be their fathers, or dating married foreign men knowing they are married. Oh well, this is a touchy subject... |
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Flying to SFO xyzah, That was a prompt reply! You must be on line when I sent you the above comment. So you did come to SH before and know at least what it looks like - mobs of people for sure. But I must tell you being a tourist on short visit (less than one month I mean) is totally different from living here as a long-term resident. Of course, everyone sees things from a differnt perspective. I happen to like very clean neighborhood, which in SH only exists in some remote locations with mostly single-family houses within a gated compound. They are so far fetched you need a car. We didn't choose to live in those neighborhood mainly because they are inconvenient in spite that we do have a car and a driver. For the most part of Shanghai districts, streets are crowded with vehicles, shops, peddlers and people too. And most streets are quite dirty with trash and phlegm. I live in an very nice wide street in Shanghai about one mile west of People Square; nevertheless, our street becomes very littered by the afternoon. Plus, the city is terribly air and noise poluted from cars honking and dusts. The traffic seems to be forever in gridlocks except during the wee hours. Yes, I know there are many people here, but if drivers and pedestrians would just obey the traffic signals traffic wouldn't be so bad. It's a very disorderly city; many don't queue, which bother me to hell. I don't know if you smoke, but two thirds of the male smoke and increasingly more females smoke too, so everywhere you go, indoors or outdoors, we are forced to become second-hand smokers. Don't get me wrong! Not everything is negative, but definitely negatives outweighs the positive. Ecnomically, there are good oppoutunites out there, but you have to be very talented to fetch the good jobs. I don't like telling the locals my feelings toward this city as they might just say why don't you leave. We moved here because of my husband's employment, so I have no choice. If the locals would just improve or get rid of the bad habits, SH can be a great city to live in. You asked me what I do here. Well, I don't work anymore cause I travel out of China frequently. Plus, I'm close to my retirement age. I also like to within China. People in some other cities are much nicer and helpful. In Shanghai, if you ask people for street directions, at best you get someone pointing one direction without telling you how many blocks you need to go or where to turn or what some landmarks are. If you have determined to come to SH, you should find housing close to transportation (buses or subway lines)as Shanghai is a massive city. Getting around from one part of the city to another can take a long time. And don't rent a flat long term before you land with a suitable job. Shanghai's subway system has been expanding in the past few years, but can be extremely crowded. Living close to your work can save you time and aggrevations. From your Pingying, I suspect you speak some Manderin, which comes very handy doing business and getting around. Percentage wise, fewer people in SH speak English than those in Taipei. Tamie |
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Flying to SFO xyzah, Let me add my two cents your question of if Shanghai is an expensive place to live. I lived in Taipei for six years prior to moving to Shanghai three years ago, so I know what cost of living is like in both cities. As Jianshuo already briefly replied to you, it all depends on your standard of living - Where you want to live, the size of the accomandation and amentities of the apartment complex, what and where you would eat, and your life style. In general, living cost in SH is much lower than that in Taipei. Hmmm...I'll say it's about one third of the cost. Food costs are definitely lower, perhaps 1/3 to 1/4 of what you would pay in Taipei for similar type of foods in similar type of restaurant. Bear in your mind though. You will probably earn less money teaching English here. I did a lot of private tutoring in Taipei while living there. I charged NT1,000(USD30) per hour for one student, or NT$1,200 for two students, I had more requests than I would wanted. I don't know how much English teachers are paid here, but from reading some forum posts, I gathered that many English teachers condiser themselves lucky if they are paid 100-200 RMB per hour. Therefore, you will likely make far less money here. So, it will be a wash. Before you quit your job in Taipei, I suggest that you come out to Shanghai for a visit to check out living conditions and living costs yourself. Do talk to other English teachers here to see what they have to say. Other than living expenses, I think you should also take into considerations for other aspects, such as health care facilities, traffic conditions, environment in which you live and work closeby, and people's mentalities here. After you have a chance visiting SH and make comparisons yourself, then I hope you can make the right decision whether to come or not. Tamie |
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Donghai Bridge ILH, So, Donghai bridge is not going to reduce the distance from SH to Ningbo!! Too bad! But wouldn't it make sense if it did? I know what you meant by flying on the ocean surface. I have similar experience driving over San Mateo Bridge in the Bay area. Since I don't swim, I always get a eerie feeling driving "on top of the vast water". Jacke, Thank you for your info on the completion date. Hopefully it does open by Nov. |
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Donghai Bridge Hi Sabrina, Oh my! Are you sure your friend was not stoned? How could she not knowing how she end up in the trench and how long she stayed there? Well, all I can say is you should tell her not to drive if she's not well rested. She may not be that lucky if there is a next time. I would advice people not to take taxis for long hawl rides. Many of the taxis are rented to drivers on per diem basis at a flat fee. In order to maximize the usage of the car, some drivers sublet their rented taxis to other drivers for a second shift. Any vehicles being driven continuously without much rest or maintainence are likely to have metal fatique and would break down at any moment. In addition, I suspect how well most taxis were manufactured. Without solid body frames, one can get seriously hurt in accidents. Furthermore, I doubt taxis have high insurance coverages. Do remember, human lives don't carry as much moneytary values in China as in the States. I don't mean to imply it's better to die in the States. A life is a life, but without having to pay out too much, many drivers may not be as cautious as they should have. I read about the compensation paid to victims' families of an plane crash occured in Inner Mongolian last year. The price ticket: $200,000RMB, which translates to $25,000US$. |
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Donghai Bridge Does anybody know the expected completion date of Donghai Bridge? My husband and I went there and Lucao Harbor about four months ago, we experienced the same problem that Jianshuo did. There were big tractors stucking in the middle of the narrow unpaved road. We couldn't move forward nor backward. Finally we managed to reach the bridge. We asked a watchman if we could drive all the way toward the end of bridge. He let us in for 10 RMB. We saw some people there perhaps waiting for their boat ride to somewhere. I hope this bridge can be finished ASAP as we would like to visit Ningpo. This bridge will drastically shorten the driving distance between Shanghai and Ningpo. Talking about highway casulties, I am not surprised about the high rate of death in China. From what I have observed, too many trucks overloaded. In fact, one shouldn't be driving close to such vehicles as if they lose balances, it can either turn over easily or have cargos flying to your vehicle. Another major problem is I don't understand why the drivers don't turn down their high beams when there are cars coming on the opposite direction. These high beams can easily either blind other drivers vision or put a major strain on their visions. Tired drivers are more prone to accidents. Last weekend, we went to Zhuji, Yiwu in Zhejiang Province. Oh my!! You'll be surprised to see how many drivers passing cars using the lanes of the opposite direction. This is why my husband and I decided not to apply for drivers' licences here in China. One, we don't know the roads well, and two, I would have a nervous wreck if I have to cope with the reckless driving condition. Three, I get really nervous when people honk at me when I didn't do anything wrong. It drives me insane when tens of cars are lining to enter the Lujiazui Tunnel, aside from people trying to cut in, some crazy drivers behind us would honk non-stop. Who are they honking at? Jesus Christ!! |
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On Time Management Mediaspin, What you said made a lot of sense. I simply can not keep everything I need to do in my head particular during the last severals when I get older. So I have done something similar to what you have done, which is to keep a planner in which I write down all appointments I have with people. On top of that, I keep a To Do Lists at least once a week, and I update it whenever needs arise. It takes me a long time, sometimes as much as half an hour in one sitting, to come up with a detailed list of things that I need to take care of either immediately or within the next week. If I plan to call some people, I would dig out their telephone numbers and put them beside their names. Yes, it takes time to do so, but once I have the TO Do List made up, executing it is much quicker than one can imagine. And I make quick notes of what my cnversation is about in writing. If I need to call a business to check some information or to make a complaint, I would write down the date, name of person I contacted and the action I took, and make notation if I need to follow up on the case. By doing so, should I need to contact these people again, I would try to speak with the same persons to save time repeating what I had said before. Another tool I use which saves me a lot of time retrieving documents is to keep anything worth saving in my filing cabinet. Then once a year, I go through the files and toss out paper I no longer need. By faithfully keeping good files, I can find things much quickly than if I have to look for them in piles of paper work. Of course nowdays people can save documents in computer files, but I still do things the old way. Another trick I use is to keep many things that I want to put in storage in clear plastic bags or in ziploc bags instead of shopping bags which I can't see through. Again, this saves me time. Anyway, this is a big topic to cover. What I shared with you guys are just a few good habit I formed which has helped me. |